Pillaring and NiO_x co-catalyst loading as alternatives for the photoactivity enhancement of K₂Ti₄O₉ towards water splitting

Abstract

Combining TiO2 pillaring with the loading of the NiOx co-catalyst can boost the water splitting hydrogen production over K2Ti4O9 66 times.

Ion Exchange Synthesis of Cobalt Ion Modified Titanate Nanoarray as an Electrocatalyst toward Efficient Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

“…The thickness of the KTO NA layer is determined to be ∼2 μm from the cross-section SEM image (Figure S3a). The high-resolution TEM image in Figure c reveals that KTO NA has a lattice fringe of 0.87 nm which is close to the (200) lattice plane of K 2 Ti 4 O 9 and consistent with the reported data. , These observations above indicate the successful formation of KTO NA on Ti substrate, in which the determined loading of KTO NA is 5.0 mg cm –2 . Cobalt ion modified titanate nanoarray was obtained via a Co/K ion exchange reaction by the use of KTO NA as precursor.…”

“…Its lattice fringe is determined to be 0.74 nm, which is slightly smaller than that of KOT NA. The interlayer distance of the (200) plane of K 2 Ti 4 O 9 is 0.87 nm, and the radius of K + is 0.133 nm , which is larger than that of Co 2+ (0.072 nm) . Therefore, the K + in KTO could be easily replaced by much smaller sized Co 2+ and further lead to the shrinking of interlayer spacing.…”

Photo-electrochemical hydrogen production from neutral phosphate buffer and seawater using micro-structured p-Si photo-electrodes functionalized by solution-based methods

“…38,43 Decoration with NiO x has been studied for improving OER catalysis, 27,44,45 but there are only a few studies on the application of NiO x as HER catalysts at neutral (or near neutral) pH. [46][47][48][49] To the best of our knowledge, NiO x has not yet been studied as HER co-catalyst on the surface of p-Si/TiO 2 for photoelectrochemical seawater reduction to H 2 .…”

Binary Transition Metal NiFeOx and CoFeOx Cocatalysts Boost the Photodriven Water Oxidation over Fe2TiO5 Nanoparticles

“…Especially for suspended‐particle solar water splitting, the employment of cocatalysts is imperative, as they tend to reduce energy losses, improving the efficiency of the redox reactions at the solid/liquid interface [19,20,22,23] …”

“…Although surface states hinder the maximum performance of Fe 2 TiO 5 nanoparticles, this hindrance is prone to be attenuated by the deposition of homogeneously distributed nanostructured cocatalysts. This strategy paves a smoother route for the rapid charge carriers extraction, inhibiting charge recombination at defect states [12,19–24] …”